'cause it's hard to see from where I'm standin'

There have been multiple concerns with regards to bed bugs this school year. As a city made up of over 8 million people, it is almost inevitable that one of us, or many of us will come in contact with these bugs. The [High School] is not immune to bed bugs. We have reported three bed bug discoveries so far; one classroom, the library, and one lunchroom. However, there are some things you can do to aid in the prevention of bringing them home with you:

1. Remember to place your bag on a desk or table (keep it off of the floor)
2. Have up your coat far away from other coats
3. Shake out your coat and clothing in the bath tub when you return home
4. Cover your mattress and box spring in a plastic, zipped covering

These tips should give many of you some peace of mind. If you would like further information, the NVC.gov website:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/vector/bed-bug-guide.pdf
has a great user friendly guide!

If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to speak with any administrator.

Might as well just write, “If you work here, you will get bed bugs. Courtesy of Michael Bloomberg.”

“They’re already blocked, by design. We use a DoE proxy to get to the internet. The kids are using CGI proxies – basically money-laundering for IPs – to circumvent it and there’s little I can do from my end to stop them because the computer itself can’t block what it doesn’t know is being accessed.”

“So block the CGI proxies.”

“They’re an endless cycle of temporary websites. That’s several full-time jobs’ worth of work, done by people who are paid more than me and work in a central office without yelling high schoolers.”

“Then what am I supposed to do to control the class?”

“Do what I did when I taught a tech class for half your pay: Walk around the room and look over the kids’ shoulders.”

“But I do that. They just turn it right back when I leave.”

“Then I have no advice for you. You’re the one with the Master’s in Education, and have therefore taken a course or two in classroom control.”

Actually, I do have a piece of advice for you: Teach them something they find interesting so they don’t retreat to Youtube and Facebook to get away from the class.

The basics of Adobe Illustrator is beneath them. I have these same kids, and they’re tearing apart and rebuilding whole computers. They’re bored to tears in your class and they’re taking out their frustrations on the equipment.

For one lab alone, I’ve had to replace five keyboards, eleven mice, three monitors and one motherboard over the course of two months. Kids have changed the default language for the OS, enabled the BIOS password, and many other mischievous deeds of idle hands. ENGAGE THEM MOTHERFUCKER.

To be fair, Jon Stewart’s rally was great, but even as he pointed out, “it’s not how many people attend, it’s how many people the media says attended.” And, as if on cue, the NYTimes et al barred mention of the rally from the front page, relegating it to two op-ed pieces and a short article that failed to mention any of the pointed criticism Jon Stewart held the rally for in the first place.

But that’s not nearly as insane as the insinuation that, what with Obama declaring himself “humbled” by the political winds changing (and here I was two years ago predicting the end of the Republican party – I may yet not be far off) pundits are claiming that – finally – there may be bipartisanship in Washington. Because, as we all know, Republicans were all simply waiting for the right opportunity to collaborate with their comrades across the aisle.

It’s not a terrible stretch of the imagination to point out that, to a great swath of the political system, all politics is merely campaigning and reality is subservient to the goals, however amorphous as they may be, dictated by the Republican party. In that stead, this election isn’t a mandate for Republican policies – for there are none – but instead a grossly misdirected referendum on Democratic inability.

And while Jon Stewart has attempted to take the moral high ground by having us and them (mostly them) tone down the hyperbole and acidic rhetoric, we may not see the fruits of that for at least another generation to come. Simply put, too many of the American people are too ill-educated, too easily distracted, and too cynically apathetic to allow proper function of this here republic, and education takes at least a generation to fix itself… and we’ve yet to begin to overhaul it.

In a sense, the corrupting of the executive and upper congressional branches – invented largely to temper the hoy polloy through the closest system a representative government can get to an oligarchy – has finally spread to the only direct representation the people have through the House, such that direct representation of a people who have no idea what it is they want is largely useless.

And until they figure that out, our economy will contract, our influence on the world will diminish, and we will become yet another failed empire.

In a nutshell

Words of an urban indian. Musings on the nature of civilized society, city forms and bureaucratic processes, class and race consciousness, complaining, ranting and more ranting, along with whatever the hell else piques one's interest nowadays.

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To quote H. L. Mencken, "The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office."